Sing for me
by TaisaXChui
Summary: A voice. He had heard of it somewhere. It was very familiar; so sweet and so sad and so utterly beautiful. It was tempting to look around to find its source. He didn't look around. He knew it was all in his head.


Disclaimer: Royai is too divine to have been made by these hands of mine.

* * *

_I said_

_she's gone_

_but I'm alive, I'm alive_

_I'm coming to the graveyard_

_to sing you to sleep now_

_-Tori Amos, "__GRAVEYARD__"_

* * *

"_Sing for me?"_

He looked up at the clear night sky, the moon hanging low and full as wisps of clouds flittered across. A chilly breeze passed by enough to make him shiver. He didn't flinch.

A voice. He had heard of it somewhere. It was very familiar; so sweet and so sad and so utterly beautiful. It was tempting to look around to find its source. He didn't look around. He knew it was all in his head.

It was a voice long lost from the world.

* * *

_The moon hung high in the sky and the air was cold. Stars dotted the heavens and Roy knew it was a beautiful night. He could have enjoyed it but there was a more troubling thought in his mind._

_The house was empty save for him. His Sensei had left that morning to do whatever business he had to do, leaving him and his daughter alone. And now _she_ was missing. Somehow, he knew it had something to do with her actions during the dusk._

_Even after knowing Riza Hawkeye for five months then, there was still more of her that he was not aware of. She was a mystery-has always been. But she had opened up to him due to his unrelenting efforts to get to know her. She was his best friend just as he was to her._

_He thought he knew her enough… until the sunset of that day._

_Emptiness. Sadness. He felt it the moment he had heard the first notes of her music._

_There was a piano in the Hawkeye manor. It had always been there. It had been concealed by a cloth, dusty after being left over time. He had always thought it was just a table. He just never noticed it until he saw her play._

_Spell-binding were her melodies, he had been unable to move, unable to come closer or to speak. He had simply stood there, listening with awe. He never knew she could play an instrument. She had always been a reserved, quiet girl with her books and her father didn't like noise. It explained why she never played until then. But there were days when her father was not home so he wondered why she only played then. Perhaps that day was special._

_And she was singing. Her voice had been like, how should he describe it, unlike anything else he had ever heard. So sweet and innocent yet full of pain. He never knew she could sing that well. He had never even heard her sing._

_It had ended before he realized it. Or did it? Because he remembered opening his eyes when the music had died down… and she was no longer there._

_He gazed at the old musical instrument as it was painted by the colors of sunset. The sudden silence was crushing him and the emptiness he felt was overwhelming. It was twilight and no one else was in the room full of timeworn possessions of the Hawkeyes, containing memories in which he did not know of. Normally, he saw the living room as a place that would look ancient and dirty no matter how many times Riza cleaned it. But at that moment, he was seeing it rather deeper than he ever had. It had been a place full of love and, like fragile glass, was shattered and gone in the blink of an eye._

_It was Riza's past._

_He looked around and failed to see her. It was starting to grow dark. If she wasn't in the house, he could be certain of where she was. He walked to the back door and gazed out and, at the hill under the old maple tree, he saw Riza. She was sitting alone and, tentatively, when he neared her, saw that her eyes were distant and lightless. He wondered if he should talk to her or leave her alone. She had always been alone. She always pushed comfort away. And, he decided, he was not going to leave her alone._

"_Riza," he began softly, "That- I never knew you were that good."_

_Her expression didn't change. "Thank you, mister Mustang. But please leave me alone." She probably read his intention already._

_Instead of walking away, he sat beside her and leaned back, eyeing the starry sky in silence._

_They stayed that way for a long while, him staring above, and her, staring blankly ahead._

"_You're going to leave too. Someday." She spoke and he almost thought it was just the wind blowing._

_His expression turned a little sad, "…yes. It's life. We meet people and we leave people. But they aren't forgotten. Because we may not be with them but… they're always here." He said, pointing at his heart. From her statement, he kind of had a clue now about what was making her act this way. Because he understood it for he had also felt the same back then; back then whenever he missed his parents that were gone._

_She didn't say anything. It was as if his words had just been carried off by the wind- the wind which was now a cold breeze in the night. But he was sure she heard him._

"_Riza… is it okay if you'd tell me?" he asked her slowly, gently. Her dull eyes slid to his direction. She curled her body closer to her, making her look smaller and even more fragile._

_When he was about to assume that she would not tell him anything, she looked up and the moon illuminated her face, making her seem to glow in the darkness._

"_Today is my mother's death anniversary. And that song…" she pursed her lips and bowed her head as if struggling not to cry, "She used to sing it to me when I was younger to lull me to sleep."_

_Roy looked at her sadly, unable to think of a response as they fell to another silence. The cold wind did nothing to ease the bleak quietness. He knew the song. He remembered it because it was simple, beautiful and slow. And he could relate quite well. He just could not put it into words and voice them- it wasn't him._

_Her next words were heart-breaking, simple as they may be. It was an innocent plea but he felt that it had meant more than it seems to her. Her expression was, in very rare events, unmasked and he could see the bare pain and loneliness that she felt._

"_Sing for me, please?"_

_All that was heard was silence along the howl of the wind._

* * *

Moonlight fell upon the graveyard, producing both radiance and shadow upon tombs and headstones. The fog had lifted in the area where he was headed, causing the path to be clear enough by moonlight and free from obscuring mist- causing the path to be clear that the graveyard was bleak and cold and empty.

The flower he carried swayed with the evening wind. His pale face was solemn, half illuminated and the rest hidden by shadows. His shaded eyes were fixed ahead, set to find the name he had failed to say in the recent years. His footsteps were quiet footfalls that blended with the stillness of everything around him. He could have been an apparition had the fog masked him a little more. But he was alive, with flesh, blood and bones and a heart that was still somehow beating existing inside of him.

They had gone through so much for it to just end there, in that place of emptiness and cold stones. All the pain and laughter, the guilt of the past, the hopes of the future… they had shared it. And he was not about to let it vanish that soon.

It hurt. More than any insult, war injury, or lies, it felt like the world was falling apart. _His _world was falling apart. Emptiness was more than anything ever was. The loss of his everything was emptiness. And at that moment, it was all that he had.

And he needed her. But he could not have her. All he had then was a song.

* * *

"_This isn't what I wanted!"_

_She had gazed upon him ruefully in silence but her lightless eyes mirrored everything that he was feeling._

_Ishval war, that was where they were. And they had killed. Not one, not two, and not ten but more than they would ever want to count._

_And tonight, the full moon shone a bright red as smoke rose in the atmosphere._

"_Roy."_

_The sound of his name quietly escaping her lips led him to suddenly stop. He looked at her. He could hardly remember the last time she had called him by his name. Once again, it registered to him that he was the reason she was in that hell. He was ready to pace again, to spend the sleepless night wallowing in self-blame and remorse, to leave, when a hand grasped his._

_He stopped again to look at her. Her face was painfully devoid of emotion but he never missed the pain that would flash in her eyes. Her hold on him was feeble and he froze. He could not understand but it felt like if he moved away, she would crumble like a tower of cards and if he allowed himself comfort, they would break the strong barrier they fought to build._

_That was when she began to sing._

_Her voice was calming albeit the lyrics were saddening and he found himself relaxing even for a fraction. Her voice just proved that even in that hell, there was something he could hold on to- something to wish to hear again for another day. And if he was going to die, he yearned for one last sound of heaven._

_Yet the wind was cold in hell._

"_Sing for me?"_

_Her weak smile threatened to shatter but she must stay strong for them both._

_He spent the night merely listening even until her voice had gone hoarse._

* * *

He stepped another step yet the earth didn't feel like it was there beneath his feet. He released a breath and a cloud of mist escaped his lips. The wind howled causing his coat to dance, but he carried on.

The graveyard was deathly quiet and clouds had covered the moon, shading the forlorn place. His pace slowed. It was not that he was afraid of the dark. The moon merely reminded him of her song; so beautiful and light yet sad and alone.

She had not been like that a week ago. She was happy… or at least she seemed.

* * *

_He had said that they had survived many things together and he had thanked her for always being there. She had returned it with a smile and everything seemed perfect._

_Grumman was Fuhrer and he was certainly next in line. There were no troubles then._

_But when one night came, and in the office, she looked out towards the heaven, the moon was full. He was happy. She was too but there had been a shadow lingering behind her smiles._

_He wanted to mention it but could not find the strength. What if talking about it only made it more painful for her? Must he? He had been pondering these thoughts for so long that he did not notice the chilly breeze that blew from the outside and had swept her hair as the moonlight fell upon her._

_He met her eyes which held so many emotions as she smiled at him._

_It only made him worry more, missing the soft words that left her mouth and was taken by the wind._

"_Sing for me?"_

_He smiled back at her before shaking his head. He had heard her. But he still did not understand the depressing and hopeful song. There was no point in singing a song that he could not _feel_ at that moment._

* * *

The wind ceased and the silence, broken as he stopped and kneeled down, crunching the dead leaves as he laid the snow-white lily he was carrying onto a headstone that was obviously new in that graveyard.

He smiled sadly and cleared his throat. He remembered it always. He just never had the will to say the words aloud. He always knew it was beautiful just as it was bittersweet- just like her.

He gazed at the name neatly scrawled on the fine marble headstone: _Riza Hawkeye_

He spoke softly, "I will sing for you, Riza."

And he sang her mother's song under the moonlight, with the cold wind blowing across the bleak graveyard. He felt it. It had been a very long time, but he knew it was the time. It was the time to sing Riza to sleep.

"I'll sing you to sleep, Riza. Good night."

* * *

_I said_

_she's gone_

_but I'm alive, I'm alive_

_I'm coming to the graveyard_

_to sing you to sleep now_

_-Tori Amos, "__GRAVEYARD__"_


End file.
